A top economic adviser to Mitt Romney wrote an op-ed blasting President Obama's position on the European economy in the German business journal Handelsblatt, the New York Times reported, prompting cries from the Obama campaign that Romney's adviser is undermining U.S. foreign policy.
R. Glenn Hubbard, the dean of the Columbia Business School and a former adviser in the Bush administration, charged Obama with "ignorance of the causes" of the eurozone crisis and the administration with giving "misleading" advice on the crisis. The op-ed, published online on Saturday, comes after a week in which Obama pressured Spain to take a bailout to quell a quickly escalating crisis there. The President has been a sharp critic of the austerity policies in effect in much of Europe, pushing for more pro-growth policies to get the region back on track.
According to the New York Times' translation, Hubbard wrote that he didn't agree with the administration's attempts “to persuade Germany to stand up financially weak governments and banks in the euro zone so that the Greek crisis would not spread to other states.” Instead, he wrote that eurozone nations suffering economic turmoil should reduce their spending and tax burden to create growth, and that "Mitt Romney, Obama’s Republican opponent, understands this very well and advises a gradual fiscal consolidation for the U.S.: structural reform to stimulate growth.”
The Obama campaign, the Times reports, accused Hubbard of attempting to "undermine" America's foreign policy.
“In a foreign news outlet, Governor Romney’s top economic adviser both discouraged essential steps that need to be taken to promote economic recovery and attempted to undermine America’s foreign policy abroad,” said Obama campaign Press Secretary Ben LaBolt.
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